Sounds of Hope

I walked to the pay phone in the hallway.   Everything was green, the walls, the floor, a dull green to match the mood.   I picked up the phone and dropped my coin.   I dialed the familiar number of the church.   My call interrupted the merriment of an Afterglow, a time of fellowship after a Sunday evening service.   Pastor Calloway soon said “hello.”   I said, “my father is dead.”   He said, “I’ll be right there.” We stood in the hall.   I don’t remember for sure who was there.   I know I was there.   I think my husband was there, but then he might have been with our son.   I think my brother was there, perhaps his wife or one of his boys.   Marta, the nurse my mother loved was probably there.   We waited as the body was disconnected from the tubes and wires.   A day before a young doctor knelt by his urine bag begging for it to fill with yellow liquid.   That liquid was like gold.   It meant my dad would ...

I went once to Fort Leonard Wood and stayed in the guesthouse for the weekend. He wasn’t supposed to have visitors during Basic but I took Greyhound anyway. I brought Nathan and remember in the quietness of that room he learned to point to his nose, eyes, ears, mouth and chin on command. I can still see his sweet little face as he sat on my lap and we played.  I went to his graduation from Basic. He came home for a short leave. My stomach was growing as another child was preparing to come into our family. He moved on to AIT, Advanced Infantry Training, at Fort Polk Louisiana. The welcome sign at Fort Polk declared it was the training ground for Viet Nam. I bought a Greyhound bus ticket to go to Louisiana for a weekend visit. Sunday we rode an old school bus to church in Leesville. The young pastor of the church gave us use of his car for the day. We drove around the swampy environs of Leesville enjoying our day of freedom. We returned the car to him after the Sunday night se...

Alvin had finished high school just before we married. He was a year older and a year ahead of me. As my class, Hickman 1969, donned their caps and gowns, I was preparing for yet another move. Having passed the test for his exhorter's credentials with the Assemblies of God, we packed our belongings for our first major move to Neosho Missouri, the flower box city 242 miles away. Neosho was to be the home of the new Ozark Bible Institute. Neosho, only 76 miles from the international headquarters of the Assemblies of God, was at odds with its denomination. Worldliness had crept in to the Assemblies in the form of lipstick, eye shadow, television, short hair, short sleeves, mixed bathing, and all manner of sinful behavior. Their quarrel was not doctrine. It's quarrel were standards. Alvin was to be in the first class at OBI. As David confronting Goliath, OBI would be a challenge to the backslidden Evangel College and Central Bible Institute (now Evangel University and Centra...

My mother-in-law Estella thought I should go to work. She said she had always worked. She had no sympathy for our lack of food in the house. It didn’t matter to her that we went without. She felt I should work. I tried. I had several jobs during those first few months I was married. My mother had only one job during my years growing up. It lasted one month. To me, married women didn’t work. Married women were to be like the role models Donna Reed, June Cleaver or even the young wife, Samantha Stephens. I wasn’t lazy. I told someone recently that I still hear the tape of my mother-in-law. She is still telling me I am lazy. So powerful was her influence. At times I still believe her. Getting a job at 16 was not easy. I had no clerical skills. I didn’t know how to type or take steno. I knew neither Gregg nor Pitt stenography. Most of the summer jobs were given to people who knew people, children of a friend. I eventually landed a job at a drug store on Broadway, the main business street...

Coffee is a great thing. I love coffee. I used to own a coffee shop. Today my coffee tastes terrible. Not sure why. Is it just me? Is it the coffee? I don’t think it is the coffee since I buy huge amounts of whole bean Dunkin Donut coffee when in Tennessee and bring it back to South Dakota.  I have a great coffee maker so that’s not it either. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was a small child. My father always had to have a skvett of coffee before going out the door. A skvett  is like a splash or drop. The coffee was made in a small four cup aluminum percolator coffee pot.  Percolators are amazing things. I’ll bet some younger people have no idea what a percolator is or how to make coffee with it. It is a magical invention that somehow knows exactly when the coffee is done and stops the percolating action. Maybe that’s what I need to do, get rid of the Cuisinart and get a percolator at Goodwill. When my dad would have a skevtt of coffee, it was usually reheated coffe...